


new, safe

by j quadrifrons (Jenavira)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Asexual Relationship, Canon Asexual Character, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Touch-Starved, every time jonny posts something mean i write something softe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 01:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18510832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenavira/pseuds/j%20quadrifrons
Summary: Their first kiss is terrible.A series of firsts.





	new, safe

**Author's Note:**

> timeline is ~handwavey~ canon doesn’t exist, [this](https://twitter.com/jonnywaistcoat/status/1118846530054709248) doesn’t exist, they’re just happy forever
> 
> (does take place in the same continuity as [the darkness lifts, imagine, in your lifetime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18278408) though)

Their first kiss is terrible. There isn’t even an excuse for it, no monsters attacking the Archives, no injuries, no threat of impending death (well, no more than is usual for them by now): just the end of a long day bent over impenetrable documents and the snapping of a tension that Jon suddenly cannot stand. This one, at least, he can do something about.

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, his nose, his jaw; his lips are chapped from where he’s been chewing on them all day and the arm of his chair is digging into his ribs where he’s leaned over into Martin’s space. He’s about to pull back and mutter an apology, but Martin just smiles against his mouth, carefully extracts Jon’s glasses from the equation (another variable he’d forgotten to consider, Jon thinks to himself, annoyed), and leans back in to press their mouths together again. They’re both clumsy, Jon with nerves and inexperience, Martin with (Jon is well aware) long-repressed desire, but they keep at it, until Martin’s hands are stroking through Jon’s hair and Jon’s are locked around Martin’s biceps and the whole world has narrowed to just the two of them, for now, just this moment, in the space where they touch. 

(The next morning Jon traces the bruise the chair has left on his midsection and spends twenty minutes carefully schooling his expression so that he doesn’t walk into work grinning like an idiot.)

**

They’re going about this all wrong. Their first date isn’t until three weeks after they kissed in Jon’s office, and it isn’t even planned. There have been more kisses since then, stolen moments in Archive Storage, but there’s the end of the world to prevent, and between the nightmares and the constant feeling of looking over his shoulder Jon doesn’t have time to think. (You’re making excuses, Jonathan, he tells himself, but he still never asks Martin for anything, never tries to put a name to this thing between them.)

It’s past six and the sinking sun is throwing a low glare across the hallway and onto his desk when Martin interrupts, squaring his shoulders in the doorway. “Come on,” he says firmly, and Jon can tell he’s been rehearsing this for a while, which only makes his chest ache with affection. “We’re going to dinner.”

“Let me just finish -” Jon starts to say, almost on reflex, but Martin's ready for him.

"Nope," he says, throwing Jon's coat onto the stack of papers in front of him and the recorder at his elbow. "The world's not gonna end tonight, and if it does, I'm pretty sure the crap we've been going through all week wouldn't have helped anyway." He's blushing a little, whether from the mild vulgarity or his own forcefulness, Jon can't tell. "Also you didn't eat lunch. You can't live on statements, Jon," he says much more softly.

Jon isn't sure about that at this point, but he doesn't argue, just picks up his coat and follows Martin out of the Institute. 

Neither of them are fit for dinner in Chelsea, even if they could technically afford it on the salary Elias pays his cannon fodder, so Martin bundles them onto the tube and they wind up at a little hole-in-the-wall Polish restaurant where the grandmotherly woman behind the counter greets Martin by name and gives him a broad wink that makes both of them blush and the woman laugh delightedly. 

She seats them in a private corner and they talk quietly, carefully steering the conversation away from anything that might be slightly work- or monster-related. Jon tells Martin about Georgie's obsession with Hungarian food; Martin tells a ridiculous story about his childhood neighbor's dog's obsession with chip wrappers; it's easy. Good. Jon can feel the tension seeping out of his shoulders, and the more he relaxes the more Martin smiles at him, which relaxes him even more. He's grateful he doesn't drink with dinner; he feels a little drunk already. It might just be the combination of exhaustion and lack of food finally sated.

It might be Martin.

On the walk back to the tube station, Martin carefully takes Jon's hand in his, lightly, giving him plenty of room to pull away. Instead, Jon laces their fingers together and holds on tight. His whole body sings with it. He holds on all the way to his own stop, and the kiss they share before they part feels less intimate.

**

They don't really go out much. Aside from the danger of it, going out unprotected by whatever watches over them in the Institute, neither of them are really going out people. Instead they spend long evenings in Martin's flat, Jon reading notes and statements and sometimes a book when Martin pulls the work out of his hands in frustration; Martin curled up with a poetry collection or scribbling in a notebook. Sometimes, instead, they spend long evenings pressed up against each other on Martin's ratty sofa, kissing slowly. They're getting better at it, though Jon still doesn't know what to do with his hands and Martin still touches Jon like he's not sure he's allowed. 

Jon apologizes once for not bringing Martin home to his, but he genuinely doesn't have comfortable places for two people to sit down. Martin just gives him a look that says he's not at all surprised and says it's fine. (If Jon is punishing himself a little, imagining Martin trapped here for two weeks with Jane Prentiss knocking at his door while Jon was sat at work being grateful for the peace and quiet, well, Martin doesn't need to know that.) 

The first time Martin asks him to stay the night, they've already had The Conversation (as Jon tends to think of it, and it still throws him a little that it didn't, for the first time in his experience, lead to the slow dissolution of their closeness) and so it isn't anything other than an offer to sleep in the same bed. Except it is, somehow; despite all their hours curled up next to each other, all their intimacies, this feels like so much more. Jon says yes before he can talk himself out of it.

Martin's bed isn't large, but that hardly matters. He pulls Jon down on top of him, but Jon doesn't need the encouragement, and besides, he has his own ideas. He adjusts them until he's sandwiched between Martin and the wall, Martin half on top of him, his weight a comforting pressure that loosens something tight in his chest. Jon wraps his arms around Martin's shoulders, hooks an ankle over Martin's calf, and lets out a low breath of sheer pleasure. Martin laughs, a little breathless, and presses a kiss to the top of Jon's head. Jon hopes that he doesn't fall asleep too quickly, he wants to enjoy this, but the universe isn't in the habit of granting Jon Sims his wishes.

Jon wakes in the middle of the night, as he always does, pleading cries still echoing in his ears, graveyard fog wrapped around his ankles. Martin is snoring very softly, his face pressed into Jon's shoulder, his weight still a heavy comfort across Jon's chest. Jon shifts a little, telling himself it's to stretch out a cramp, but really it's to see if he can get any closer at all to the man already saturating every inch of him. Martin stirs, tightens his arm reflexively, but doesn't wake. Jon cards his fingers gently through Martin's hair, soothing himself with the touch, and realizes that, for the first time in a long time, he feels completely safe.


End file.
